Photographer's Note

The chateau of Hluboká was originally founded as a guarding castle in the mid 13thKnight from armory century by the Kings of Bohemia, and being royal property, it was frequently forfeited. Several aristocratic families took turns owning it. The important ones included e.g. the Lords of Pernštejn, who founded the nearby fishpond of Bezdrev in 1490, the second largest fishpond in Bohemia. The prominent aristocratic family of the Lords of Hradec purchased the domain in 1561. Two years later, the new owners had the original Gothic castle rebuilt into a Renaissance chateau. In the late 16th century, the next owner was the family Malovec of Malovice, who, being Protestants, lost the property in 1619, and four years later Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg gave it as a compensation for war claims to the Spanish general Don Balthasar de Marradas. In 1661, Jan Adolf I of Schwarzenberg bought Hluboká from hisHluboka nephew. The Schwarzenbergs lived in Hluboká until the end of 1939, when the last owner Dr. Adolf emigrated overseas to escape from the Nazis. They lost their property once for all through a special Act, Lex Schwarzenberg in 1947. Thanks to their very well-managed property and large-scale economic activities, the Schwarzenbergs twice rebuilt the chateau of Hluboká, first in the early 18th century in the Baroque style, and later, they carried out an extensive reconstruction of the chateau in the romantic neo-Gothic style of the in the years 1840 – 1871, including a re-arrangement of the park and the surrounding countryside. TheHluboka rebuilding was influenced by the journeys of the then owner, Prince Jan Adolf II of Schwarzenberg and his spouse Princess Eleonore, née Princess of Liechtenstein, to England. The main model of the project was the royal castle of Windsor. Rebuilding work were started according to the designs by the Viennese architect Franz Beer, and, after his death, the Schwarzenberg builder Damasius Deworetzky continued, especially focusing on designing the splendid interiors.